giving credit

Gail Taylor recently posted an essay on “rip off artists” to her Tomorrow Makers blog concerning intellectual plagiarism in the knowledge economy. I have no doubt it was a difficult post for her to write, as she is one who tends overwhelmingly to see the positive in peoples’ intentions and ideas. It is an important post for members of The Value Web - as well as other individuals and organizations who use the MG Taylor methods legitimately and with integrity. Honoring the work and ideas upon which our work and ideas have developed brings honor upon ourselves and to the clients and partners with whom we work. This is perhaps as important as the legal agreements and licensing fees we have put in place; demonstrating our acknowledgment not just the body of knowledge we have inherited, but the spirit behind it as well.
~Todd Johnston

GRASS– global responsible accountable sustainable stewardship

Lucky me! I recently had the good fortune to work with Matt Taylor and Lisa Piazza (MGTaylor Corporation). The way that they designed reminded me to add a little GRASS to my life. Unfortunately, this homonym is laden with heavy meaning that will likely force us to drop its use, at least officially, before we are labeled potentially dangerous and have our phones tapped!

For definition sake in this blog I use the term GRASS to mean: global, responsible, accountable sustainable stewardship. It was coined during an event called L5, as part of a parallel process design challenge to distill the characteristics of members in an emerging value web, or community. The characteristics, and the catchy name, have loosely guided the Value Web Association since its inception, and loosely guided my design tenants. I see, though, that it would be easier to be GRASS, and apply it, if we have an agreed-upon definition and a few simple rules.

… see THE VALUE WEB in action …

… at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008
in Davos, Switzerland …

combining top down with bottom up

In a recent post to his Technium blog, Kevin Kelly, with his usual eloquence, reminds us that, “now that crowd-sourcing and social webs are all the rage, it’s worth repeating: the bottom is not enough. You need a bit of top-down as well” (emphasis his). The key reason for this, Kelly goes on to say, is time. Pure ‘bottom up’ does not operate on a time scale requisite with our ‘instant culture’. In his words:

We are too much in a hurry to wait around for a pure hive mind. Our best technological systems are marked by the fact that we have introduced intelligent design into them. This is the top-down control we insert to speed and direct a system toward our goals. Every successful technological system, including Wikipedia, has design wired into it.

What’s new is only this: never before have we been able to make systems with as much “hive” in it as we have recently made with the web. Until this era, technology was primarily all control, all design. Now it can contain both design and no-design, or hive-ness.

It strikes me that this combination of design and hive-ness is precisely what enables a process such as a DesignShop to facilitate the conception and emergence of ideas from within a community of participants (i.e., the ‘bottom’) and then develop them into definable, actionable solutions over the course of just a few days.

slow design, accelerated solutions

Going through my archives earlier in the week, I uncovered “Slow + Design” a manifesto of a “slow approach to distributed economy and sustainable sensoriality” that was published in preparation for a 2006 seminar on the subject taking place in Milan.

Using the Slow Food movement as a starting point, the authors first outline the slow approach as

the simple, but in current times revolutionary, affirmation that it is not possible to produce and appreciate quality if we do not allow ourselves the time to do so, in other words, if we do not activate some kind of slowdown. However, slow does not only mean this. It also means a concrete way of actually putting this idea into practice. It means cultivating quality: linking products and their producers to their places of production and to their end-users who, by taking part in the production chain in different ways, become themselves coproducers.

Turning to “design”,

we can observe that a “new design” is emerging: a design that adopts a systemic view, that looks at the complexities of social networks, develops a capacity for listening and interrelates with the creativity and diffuse entrepreneurship that characterise contemporary society. In so doing it becomes an active part of the transformation processes underway and in those that must take place, confronted as we are with the enormous issues at stake.

These passages — and many others in the 27-page document — resonate as strongly with me today as they did when I first encountered the manifesto a year and a half ago. From my perspective as a Process Designer grounded in the practices and methods of MG Taylor, my fascination is in seeing how “slow design” can enable groups, organizations and communities to accelerate their path toward solutions.

THE VALUE WEB welcomes a new member

The Value Web is thrilled to welcome Sita Magnuson to our membership. A few of us have known Sita for some years and we were very happy to have an opportunity to invite her to KreW Value Web events. Sita joined us for the India Economic Summit in Delhi this past December and again for the Annual Meeting in Davos just last month. Thank you, Sita, for your excellent work in every event and for the contributions you are already making to the Value Web.

THE VALUE WEB @ Davos

The Value Web has successfully survived another World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. For the fourth year in a row we had the privilege to support the WorkSpace together with the Forum staff.

 

The theme of this years Annual Meeting, The Power of Collaborative Innovation, was very exciting for us. An essential piece of the Value Web’s history, way of working and objective for every event we do is to unleash the power of collaboration and ultimately see Group Genius™ emerge.

In the WorkSpace we aren’t surprised by collaboration. By setting the stage and conditions for creativity, collaboration just happens. We are delighted to watch participants have a great collaborative experience. We are also very happy to see familiar faces returning to the WorkSpace expecting an engaging collaborative experience around very current and key issues.

It is an exciting privilege to hold the energy of a creative space where some of the best minds across all industries and disciplines comes to share ideas, consider the most interesting questions, model solutions, and make important connections that could lead to world changing solutions.

 

Pictured above: The WorkSpace teams including members of The Value Web, Forum Staff, Publicis Live tech support and our special guest, Gail Taylor!

The Value Web Blog

Welcome to the Value Web’s blog…